The LASAT Masquerade 2 and later Masquerade PRO were created in 1998-2001 by LASAT Networks, as part of a product line of self-contained SOHO all-in-one servers (firewall/NAT/router, mail server etc.) and VPN gateways (the SafePipe series, which doesn't have an IDE controller and as such is less interesting for general-purpose use).

Unfortunately the company went bust, so very few of these devices were ever shipped, but they still fulfill their original purpose very well.

The Debian project still uses two Masquerade PRO, donated by LASAT, as MIPS autobuilders.

Note: Features in red are not supported by the current linux-mips kernel releases. Features in amber are only known to work in certain older kernels.

Description

Block diagrams

Masquerade 2 block diagram

Masquerade PRO block diagram

Serial Cable

If you want to do any debugging on your Masquerade, you'll need a serial cable. The cable conncets to the 6-pin (only 3 used) header on the PCB (J2). This header is not mounted on all boards, if it is missing you'll need to mount the header plus an RS-232 buffer (IC34), see the board design specification for details on which part to use. The cable design can be found here.

EUCP

The LASAT devices have a "service mode" where you can use a special tool to upload a new kernel to the device. The protocol used is called EUCP, and documentation can be found at this link: [1]. Tools to create the images and upload the files are available on the Debian instructions page, see Links.

Distributions

No Linux distributions provide dedicated support for the Masquerade Pro, but the Debian port for Cobalt Qube works very well on these devices.